


denied flowers, chaotic feelings, and pink trust

by SilverMoonT



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Third Year Miya Osamu, Third Year Suna Rintarou, mentions of thoughts about death, osasunaweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMoonT/pseuds/SilverMoonT
Summary: "Love saves you, never forget that."He doesn't believe that love saves. Love suffocates.He coughs and the smile on his mother's face begins to shrink. He sits up and coughs, coughs and coughs until the discomfort in his throat turns into a bitter taste inside his palate, and he sticks his tongue out to spit, to let petals drop into his bowl, the pink color of its softness mixing with the perfect white color of the bowl, of the rice."Does this look like salvation to you?"
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 176
Collections: SunaOsa





	denied flowers, chaotic feelings, and pink trust

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: Prompt: Past / Future
> 
> Big, big shotout to Cherry for helping me with the flowers and their meanings (thank you).

Love is beautiful, magical. It brings hope and joy, it beautifies the days and lights up the nights. It allows the heart to beat with anticipation, and proves that tears sliding down your cheeks don’t always imply bad words or actions behind them. Love is unique, it means not giving up. It’s amazing, exciting, and doesn’t discriminate. It represents caresses in the least expected moments, unrepeatable situations turned into good memories, gestures so simple yet so eccentric, and sometimes objects that are impossible to discard because good intentions are the base of its existence.

Suna rolls his eyes.

**Bullshit.**

He scratches the white color of his bowl with the tips of his chopsticks, the rice itself resembling an obstacle to his —no— entertainment that consists of ripping the bottom of the bowl with his chopsticks, his dinner of that night. His other hand remains as a support for his head, since his elbow is on the table, his glass of water half empty and half full because he has only drunk most of it to test if the water serves as a distraction for the words that his mother continues to express. But his glass still being half full indicates that no, that he is not distracted; and his almost full bowl indicates that no, either, the food is not a distraction because his mother is still sitting in front of him, talking about the apparent magical properties that love claims for itself to be considered something surreal.

Suna rolls his eyes, again. He believes that love is completely real.

And stupid.

He barely clears his throat when he feels a slight itch at the end of it.

"You are young, darling," His mother repeats, —he has already lost count of all the times he has heard her mention those words only that night, but at least he agrees, and it’s true, he is young, he is only seventeen years old. "Look at me, your father and I are no longer together but I look good, right?"

Suna blinks and finally, after so long —again, he has already lost count of how many minutes he has been using the white color of his bowl as a fixed point— he looks up to find a face similar to his, and even more equal eyes. Gold. But unlike his own, his mother's are accompanied by a small glow that he has not yet found on his own.

His mother is right, she looks good. He is happy for her.

After six months after the divorce, she finally looks good. She smiles.

But of course, now he is the one who ruins her instead of his father.

Perhaps he has inherited the physical features of his mother but the terrible trademarks of his father. An unfortunate balance. Or maybe a lucky harmony. He doesn’t know. Anyway, his mother seems to be happy. He knows that unlike his father, he won’t leave, he won’t leave her alone. He doesn't want to do it either. He loves his mother, even if he rarely mentions it out loud.

"Love saves you, never forget that."

Suna blinks. His mother mentions that love saves but love is what has sunk her in the first place. Sure, now she doesn't even seem like she’s been through a boring, long divorce anymore, too long for the three of them. But she is as good as new, radiant, accompanying her words of that moment with a smile that Suna doesn't even want to dare to copy.

He doesn’t believe that love saves. Love suffocates.

His throat itches.

Love is useless, and if it didn't exist, he wouldn't feel that way. More tired than normal, with less patience and his irritation levels increasing with each movement of the needles of the clock. He doesn't want to think too much but he does, the negativity consumes him and his itchy throat doesn't go away. He swallows but can't, and his hand holding his head turns into a soft fist. He coughs and the smile on his mother's face begins to shrink. He sits up and coughs, coughs and coughs until the discomfort in his throat turns into a bitter taste inside his palate, and he sticks his tongue out to spit, to let petals drop into his bowl, the pink color of its softness mixing with the perfect white color of the bowl, of the rice.

He is able to swallow again and raises his head with his most unbothered expression plastered on his face; his lips still counting with the bitter taste as the gold in his eyes doesn’t indicate energy like her mother's, but absence. Absence of what? Perhaps many things, perhaps few. Absence. He leaves his chopsticks aside and swallows.

"Does this look like salvation to you?"

His mother looks at him and he pursues his lips.

It has been a week since the taste of the petals in his mouth accompanies him.

Perhaps love is salvation.

But it’s also being lost, confused. Maybe empty, too.

The pink of the petals now mixed with the white of his dinner shows that he is right, that love can also represent pulling and pulling, pushing up to his throat, decorating his tongue, and leaving his mouth to give it a bitter taste, and provide his new evidence that shows that love is not only happiness, but also frustration.

They keep staring at each other until his mother speaks, "Clean up the table."

Suna pretends to cough. "I feel weak."

His mother knows he is lying, but she nods at the hallway anyway. "Go, I’ll clean."

Suna doesn’t hesitate to listen to her and goes to his room, not really feeling weak. But he still flips down on his bed and raises his head at the same time as he picks up his phone, but for the first time, instead of unlocking the screen without hesitation, his finger remains a millimeter away from the main keyboard.

The petals have already begun to plague his memories a week ago. He knows what they mean, each one of those. Small, pink color, bitter taste and bad consequences. Hanahaki disease. His love is unrequited, he is unlucky, love sucks. So far his chest hasn’t hurt, it’s a simple annoyance when the petals appear. His room doesn’t look like a garden and his mother hasn’t taken him to the doctor because as she continues to mention, it will pass.

He’s young. He's seventeen.

But he wonders how much sense her words make, if in fact, adults are always saying that young love is the best. Wild, limitless, genuine, innocent. The best time to fall in love, to experience the first broken heart. Immaturity, madness, regrets. Suna frowns and lets out a breath before finally settling in and taking his phone in his hands, his eyes ignoring Osamu's message to open internet. He brings his hand to his throat when his skin itches until he realizes his throat is itchy, and he picks up his phone with both hands again.

_Hydrangeas._

His new best friend, his worst company. Flowers. _Hydrangeas._

The gold in his eyes scans words, phrases, information.

They can be of various colors. He tilts his head, and wonders if _his_ petals being pink represent something important. He doesn’t care. Ah, he finds it. Pink. Linked to romance, heartfelt emotions, love, weddings, and marriage.

He rolls his eyes and swallows as the annoying itch fades away, and he finally smiles when he finds phrases that he thinks do relate to him. An irony.

Disinterest in romantic proposals, beauty sometimes taken as narcissism.

He is able to remember Atsumu telling him that they are both equally narcissistic and that for the same reason the team that is now under their command since Atsumu is the captain and he the vice-captain, will go far, much further than the last year. They will do much more than a single match, they will play many more sets. A tournament is the only thing left for his high school volleyball moments to end. Suna's eyes stray from the screen of his phone to rest them on the letter that had arrived at his house hours before he had felt the petals on his throat for the first time.

His future in volleyball. Achieved.

His mouth twists in disgust. Or perhaps, not achieved.

His throat begins to itch again and he chooses to sit down, outworn. His situation would be totally different and the expression that characterizes his face would be another one in case love was only about good experiences, eternal memories, and the absence of the concept of a broken heart. His throat itches more. He believes that love is stupid, an obstacle. An obstacle for him.

He doesn’t even know what love is. He just knows he doesn't like it.

Maybe he’s not even sure about that. How can he like or dislike something he doesn’t know what it is?

His throat continues to itch and he coughs. He can breathe.

He is angry. He is frustrated. He wants to break something. He coughs and a petal falls on the screen of his phone. He stares at it seriously, eliminating any hope that his eyes may carry. He blows it and lies back down. He groans and wonders if searching for what his petals mean implies finally accepting his end. Perhaps it’s the beginning of his funeral.

**SHOCK.**

Suna bites his lower lip. Osamu is always repeating him to stop doing it because sometimes he bites until nerves turn into blood because he applies too much pressure. He wonders if that means Osamu spends most of his time looking at his lips.

He frowns. He shouldn't care.

He doesn’t care.

His throat itches and he clears his throat.

His gaze meets Osamu's.

"What?" He articulates.

"It happens to ya for not using the correct clothes, I warned ya."

Suna chooses to roll his eyes because allowing Osamu to think that he’s coughing because he never matches the weather with his clothes as he should, it’s easier than explaining that the itching in his throat is actually due to the fact that for the first time he has no control over—He is in control. Of course he is. He clears his throat again and Osamu turns to continue making him a soup.

_"What is this?"_

_"Soup. For yer throat." Osamu had told him yesterday._

_"I don't know how to make soup."_

_"Can I go to yer house tomorrow?"_

_"Fine."_

He is not hungry. He wonders if the petals affect his stomach too. Probably, but perhaps he will never fully realize because he has never really been a person who likes to eat a lot, and since he has met Osamu, he now has someone who finishes what he doesn’t want or can’t keep eating. Perhaps he was destined to meet Osamu.

No.

His throat itches but he does nothing because he doesn't want Osamu to look at him again.

He had moved from Tokyo because his mother had been offered a new job. Osamu and Atsumu being considered equally good volleyball players as he is for the three to have end up wearing the same uniform and representing the same banner, is a simple coincidence. It’s not destiny, it’s life.

His throat continues to itch and he forces himself to swallow.

He sees Osamu pass the soup that he by himself is not capable of cooking because he has gotten used to his mother and Osamu cooking for him, and therefore if he spends his time in the kitchen it’s because he keeps Osamu company; from the saucepan to a small bowl that at that moment he leaves in his hands. "Eat." Is the only thing Osamu says to him before walking past him and then dropping into the couch with complete familiarity.

Suna rolls his eyes but turns to follow him and sits cross-legged on the only space Osamu has left, one of the corners of the couch. His mother is working even if it’s Saturday because since the divorce she has been doing it —Suna knows that it’s to keep her mind busy but he doesn’t mention it since he prefers to have the house for himself (and for Osamu), so both parties win. He crosses his legs as he looks at the bowl full of dubious-looking soup.

"Eat, I don't want ‘Tsumu botherin’ me by sayin’ that I never do anythin’ for the team." Osamu says at the same time as he moves to rest his head between Suna’s legs to get comfortable and use his phone.

Suna lowers his gaze to his head and narrows his eyes.

"The team?"

"Yer the vice-captain and our best middle blocker, and he knows we spend most of our time together, so if yer still feelin’ like this, he'll blame me ‘cause he'll say I don't take care of ya, so eat. ‘Cuz I don’t wanna hear him. He tires me."

Suna frowns.

Osamu doesn't have to take care of him. He doesn’t need him.

His throat itches.

He repeats his words in his mind and his frown continues to deepen.

The best middle blocker. He thinks about the letter that’s still in his room.

The best and for what?

He leaves one side of his head against the back of the couch, the bowl still warm in his hands. He wonders if he should have seen his situation coming. He is aware, and others too, that he is quick to judge people and situations. He reads intentions with the same speed as he reads and answers text messages, he intuits plays in a matter of seconds, and with the same eyes that he follows balls up in the air and hands, he scans gestures, expressions, and the meanings behind them. He bites his lower lip. There is nothing to foresee, because there’s nothing important.

His throat itches and he clears his throat.

"Eat, Suna." Osamu repeats, his tone irritated.

Suna gives him a serious look although Osamu can’t see him.

He hates him. Well, he doesn’t really hate him.

He wants to hate him.

If he doesn’t hate him, does he do the opposite?

His eyes widen and he swallows hard. No, no, and no.

They are best friends —clearly. Best friends care for each other. But Osamu only cooks for him, if he mentions that he wants something, within seconds Osamu finds himself asking if he wants to go to his house for dinner. No. He must be like that with all the people he knows. Because Osamu is an asshole, Suna believes more than Atsumu, but if he has the chance to cook, he will take it. It’s not personal.

There is nothing to ask, there is nothing to question.

Osamu doesn’t have a soft spot for him, he just has a special place, the kitchen.

"Sun—"

"I got it." Suna cuts him off.

He dips the spoon into the soup as he coughs, blows it out, and then —of course— allows the soup Osamu has made to travel down his throat. The taste is nice but he still makes a grimace. He removes the spoon to find a pink petal in it. He looks at Osamu but he is still busy looking at his phone, so he leaves the spoon in the bowl and so the petal floating in the soup. He tilts his head and wonders if he can make tea with his petals, maybe the taste will change the water. He is sure his mother would smack his head in case he dared to ask such a question out loud. He slides his eyes back to Osamu and thinks that maybe Osamu cooks for everyone or not, he doesn't want to think about it too much, but after cooking, Osamu always approaches him.

He rolls his eyes for the same reason and coughs.

"Suna."

"Miya, my cough won't go away just because I had a spoon of your soup."

Osamu throws his head back a little to look at him.

"You are in the perfect position for me to throw your soup on you." Suna adds before he says anything, although he doesn’t plan to do so because his mother would kill him for dirtying the couch, he doesn’t want to do it, much less does he want the petal that continues to float in the bowl to become visible to Osamu, whose expression doesn’t change after hearing his words.

"Once ‘Tsumu chases ya for not takin’ care of yerself, I won't let ya hide behind me."

"I’m taller than you."

"You have back pain all the time."

"Mind your business."

"Yer my business."

"I'm not a check or a meeting at eight o’clock."

Osamu rolls his eyes when he hears him and returns to his previous position to watch the screen of his phone. _‘Yer my business.’_ Suna bites his lower lip but then shakes his head. No.

His throat itches.

He ignores the petal to take another spoon of the soup.

His throat continues to itch even though Osamu's soup is tasty.

"Sun—"

"And now that?"

"It's not ‘bout the soup."

"What."

"Don't call me Miya."

**DENIAL.**

Suna believes that Osamu is attractive, that he possesses his own charm.

Where others see a neutral expression, serious compared to the permanent winning and charming smile of his brother, Suna sees a defined but soft face, honest features but not too much, because with his expression Osamu lets him guess if he is completely bored or if the situation, the moment, amuses him. But he doesn't allow his facial features to be completely honest since otherwise people wouldn't continue to approach him. Suna believes that he doesn’t need to see a smile to be attracted, to feel attracted.

He shakes his head and sticks his other knee to his chest to hug it.

Considering Osamu to be attractive is normal. The whole school does it.

He knows that the twins who happen to be his teammates are known for their physical appearance as well as their volleyball skills. He coughs softly when he feels something —a petal— rose to his throat, and immediately a brownish gaze rests on him.

"Sunarin."

"Don't bother me." He says to Atsumu.

Atsumu clicks his tongue. "I want ya to be fine, I want ya to play—"

"I'm fine." Suna interrupts him.

He is not fine.

The discomfort in his throat is becoming constant and throughout the training he is aware that he has taken advantage of the noise of the balls and his teammates shouting their respective names to be able to cough at the right time, to not be heard, to not be watched. But now that they are stretching, and Atsumu is by his side, he can’t continue to do so.

"I don’t believe ya."

"And I don’t care."

"Didn't my brother go to yer house to give ya soup?"

"Soup doesn't solve life's problems, Miya."

He wishes that a simple soup was the solution for all his problems.

He corrects himself because he doesn't need a solution. He doesn't have a problem.

He simply must face his reality.

He's fine. Everything is fine.

His throat continues to itch.

"And please don't believe you are Kita-san by leaving something for me." He adds.

"Go to hell."

"I'm already by your side."

Atsumu glances at him and Suna holds a completely fake smile.

If there is anything worse than one of the two twins worrying about him, it’s both of them worrying about him. Atsumu rolls his eyes as Suna's gaze falls on Osamu, who finds himself stretching his muscles with Gin. He thinks he’s attractive. The two twins, perhaps. The two are always telling him _"If ya find one of us attractive, then the other too."_ only because they have similar facial features, and Suna thinks they are right, but at the same time he believes that they are so wrong, so naïve. When he sees Osamu, he only wants to keep his gaze on him, travelling his face with his eyes while when he looks at Atsumu, all he does is roll them. He likes to watch Osamu because doing so gives him peace of mind.

Unlike the others, Suna knows that Osamu is triggering.

Worse than Atsumu. Much worse. He is not the calm and peaceful twin.

Looking at Osamu always implies being, feeling, somewhat uneasy, waiting for seriousness to become lethal, although Suna continues to watch. Not at that time. Finally he chooses to leave his gaze on the gym floor and roll his eyes. He clears his throat and lets out a breath, it’s getting annoying. His professors look at him in class, his mother looks at him, Atsumu looks at him. He doesn't want those looks. And he doesn’t want to look at other people either, he shouldn't. He thinks it’s stupid, he gets mad when he really should be mad at himself.

Love is mutual looks, feelings that back it.

He starts coughing, and this time it doesn't stop.

It becomes uncomfortable for himself and doesn't mind being watched by others as he chooses to get up to head for the lockers, as training is ending anyway. He continues to cough, his throat starting to ache as he leaves his back against the lockers. He brings his hands to his throat because for the first time his air is running out, and his muscles are forced until he places the palms of his hands near his mouth to blink several times with his own eyes because what he sees, is not simple petals, but a sprout. He immediately allows it to fall onto the ground because it’s closed, of a darker pink. He breathes, deeply, because he can and he feels dizzy, so his back slides down the lockers until he sits down. He looks at the sprout and feels nauseous. It had been born of him, he is its _creator_ , it had temporarily blocked his airways to finally leave his body in the form of something as beautiful but as cursed as a colorful sprout with traces of saliva. His chest hurts and he feels a chill run through his body, his skin turns goose bumps at the same time that he embraces his stomach with both arms. They are no longer petals.

He looks up and his chest hurts even more.

Atsumu is looking at him. He's looking at the sprout. He's looking at them both.

With his widen gaze, still in place.

Suna can't help but cough and allows the back of his head to touch the locker. Atsumu approaches him, slowly, as if he were dealing with a crime scene that is just what Suna doesn’t want to be. He looks at the sprout beside him and then at him. Suna looks at him and Atsumu inspects him, Suna's head hurts.

"No," Atsumu whispers. "No, no, no." He repeats, his voice clearer.

Suna looks at him and blinks several times.

He doesn't understand either. Love is not important. Love is secondary.

He starts coughing again and Atsumu looks at him, terrified. "I won't ruin your team." Suna assures him before coughing again.

"No, no, this is not possible."

He mentions those words with such assurance, with such conviction, even with the sprout at his side, even with Suna coughing in front of him. Suna has no time to question him because he coughs and uses the inner part of his elbow to cover his mouth, his head still hurts. If people didn’t give so much importance to love, he wouldn’t have that problem. He doesn’t have it. He can control it. It’s just a sprout. He has to control it. His cough turns dry and he finally leaves his forehead on his knee.

"Name." Atsumu says.

"What?"

"Tell me their name."

Suna closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Ah, now his chest does hurt.

It’s annoying, it is irritating. Everything. He swallows and his throat feels scratchy.

"No."

"Suna."

Suna grimaces because Atsumu never calls him like that.

"No, _Captain_."

And he doesn't call him like that.

"How long?"

Suna stops keeping his forehead on his knee and looks at him. Atsumu is looking at him seriously, worse than when he says that his back hurts too much, really; but the meeting of their eyes is cut when Atsumu gets up and looks for his bottle of water in his bag to then give it to him. Suna accepts it and barely drinks; he admits, afraid of feeling that the liquid will meet something in his throat, but he keeps drinking when he can drink without obstacles. Atsumu remains next to him, still looking at him.

"A few weeks ago," He finally replies. Atsumu shakes his head, Suna believes that he is more angry with the situation than himself. Atsumu seems lost, completely disoriented. He looks at him again but Suna speaks. "No one." He says, and Atsumu opens his mouth but Suna cuts him off. "No one, Atsumu."

Now it’s a secret. It’s a reality.

Atsumu continues to shake his head not because he refuses to accept the existence of the sprout between the two of them, but because he doesn’t understand the situation. He crosses his arms over his chest, Suna glances at him, and then allows the two to remain silent, the sprout still between the two of them. It’s a problem, he wants to deny it, he is denying it. They are no longer just petals, as if actually petals sticking to his palate or his tongue were something completely normal, something he had already become accustomed to. He wants to laugh at all the people he has heard mention that love is easy.

Love.

He doesn't know what love is.

His throat begins to itch again. "I'll control it."

"How?" Atsumu asks him.

"I don't know, but I will. I have to."

He has to.

**ANGER.**

He can control it (he can't). What he can’t control is, the Miya twins.

Many believe that the worst thing is to see them fight. Suna, believes that the worst thing is to see them act as allies, to be allies, because although perhaps they are both his teammates but only one of them is his classmate, it’s still easy for him to detect that Atsumu doesn’t understand what _"no one"_ means. Osamu looking at him, Suna notices it. Osamu being more serious than normal, Suna notices it. He wants to hit Atsumu's head with a ball but that image only remains in his head. He can't even be happy about that image, because now he is more than sure that instead of only one, now the two brothers know about his problem.

Problem. He doesn’t even know what, how, to call it, how to address _it_.

He doesn’t want it to be a problem, he doesn’t. He wants to get rid of it.

He still doesn’t understand. Now more than ever he understands that love is a weakness. He doesn’t want a weakness, an obstacle, something that prevents him from moving forward.

He doesn't want to be weak, but his chest still hurts, and his throat burns.

And his heart beats. And he, he is falling apart.

Suna is upset because it doesn’t matter if the other tends to smile most of the time even if it’s a haughty gesture, as false as honest, while the other remains serious, sometimes paying attention while other times pretending. Both Osamu and Atsumu are equally stupid when they want to, so when they are heading towards the lockers to change, and Osamu takes him by the arm to signal them to stay away for a moment, Suna knows that Atsumu has told him what happened. He actually expected it to happen. But he’s still angry, because Osamu is more serious than normal and he just wants to train. Volleyball is his distraction. It's tiring, but throughout the day he has focused on that sport that he likes so much, on the tournament that they still have, not on volleyball after school. He feels like he wants to cough just from imagining volleyball after graduation, and he remembers the letter that’s still in his room. He has been focused on imagining himself blocking balls, jumping. If he can be called a remarkable middle blocker because he knows how to stop players, then he must punish himself as a player. And he has to win. He has to dethrone his own self.

"Osamu, if you have something to tell me, tell me now."

Suna breaks free of his hold and stops. Osamu turns around.

He wishes he could blame the winter weather that surrounds them for the pain in his throat, the fact that at that time he is not wearing a scarf around his neck because he no longer considers that sheltering, protecting himself makes sense when the roots that are pulling him down exist inside him. Gray smoke leaves Osamu's lips when he lets out a small breath of air, and Suna keeps looking at him despite the fact that he looks pretty. He shouldn't think about that, about him.

He coughs.

Osamu straightens up.

A cold doesn't last that long. They both know it.

Suna rolls his eyes. "Look, I know you kn—"

"I like ya."

Osamu looks at him and Suna forms soft fists with his hands at the sides of his body. His chest hurts. He had prepared himself to hear that Atsumu had told him about the sprout, not to express those words, looking at him. Still looking at him, serious. Osamu swallows when Suna glares at him. Suna's heart breaks and his throat itches.

"You're an asshole." He says. His brow furrows and he coughs at the inner part of his elbow, and he forms physical contact between them not to turn that situation into a scene of a movies that people in love enjoy while people with broken hearts also enjoy, but as a distraction, to get away from the real pain; but to hit his chest with the palms of his hands; not being careful, not being delicate, but wanting to make him feel at least a trace of the pain he continues to feel. "You are an asshole!"

Osamu takes his wrists in his hands. He is also not being delicate with him. "Why?" He asks him, holding him back from trying to free himself although Suna feels that he doesn't have the energy to do so because he is saving it to swallow with force, pushing the pain through his throat. "Why d’you say that?" Osamu draws him to him, and Suna sees the anger on his face, the disappointment on his expression, the seriousness on his facial features. He sees himself in the gray of his pupils.

Being angry. Serious. Irritated.

Sick?

"Because you are!" He exclaims.

"D’you like me?" Osamu asks him.

Suna stops struggling with him as soon as he hears him.

He stares at him. He blinks.

_The Eastern Japan Paper Mills Raijin team invites you to—_

Osamu keeps looking at him.

_"Look darling, there’s this school, Inarizaki. They have a great volleyball team._ "

" _But—"_

_"You know you can come back. You like that team... what was it?_ "

_"EJP."_

_"EJP."_

_"Three years, mom."_

_"What will I do with you?"_

_"Three years and I'm coming back to Tokyo no matter what."_

Suna knows that if he has managed to adapt to Hyogo, to those who have been his teammates for the last two years and that, the last; it's because he's a jerk just like them. To deal with the brothers, equally stubborn and proud twins who demonstrate their determination in different ways, he has to be just as stupid to be able to cope with their attitudes. He has adapted because he has done more than just adapting, he has become too comfortable.

He thinks Osamu is beautiful. When he's angry and only allows him to stay by his side or sometimes not even him because he doesn't have the patience and Suna knows that challenging Osamu's limits when he's angry is not a good idea so it's better to wait. When he is happy and he shows it through a small smile on his face or simply by staying by his side, choosing to be by his side, resting his head on his shoulder or sitting next to him, letting him know that he is the person with whom he chooses to share his happiness in his own way, without many words, calmly, personally. Suna believes, thinks, that Osamu is beautiful, and blames him for everything that happens to him.

For him symptoms, for his thoughts, for _his_ _petals_ , for _his_ _sprout_.

He believes that Osamu is beautiful in the same way that he believes that love implies stagnation, sadness, missing, suffering, thinking more, thinking less. A weakness. His throat itches, it hurts, but he swallows so that the cough doesn’t get in the way of the intonation of his words.

"No." He denies, and it hurts. "I like someone else."

He doesn’t feel the fingers around his wrists loosening.

"Then why haven't I coughed up a single flower?"

He knows. Osamu knows about his petals. Petals that are already threatening.

Again.

"Because you don't like me."

"Why not? Why don’tcha believe me? Have I ever lied to ya?"

Suna finally breaks free of him and doesn’t know if his chest hurts because slowly, painfully, nature and he are becoming one, because he is hurting Osamu, because Osamu is hurting him, or because he doesn’t want to understand what love is but love doesn’t want to let go of him, love wants to understand him. Maybe all of them. Perhaps none.

"You expect me to think that Atsumu seeing me and you saying this to me is just a coincidence? I'm not st—"

He is stupid and his cough begins to show him the same. He can’t breathe and he brings his hand to his throat, wondering if the snow around him will become his end and if Osamu will have nightmares for the rest of his life, if he will feel guilty for the rest of his life. Rest of his life? He coughs, his stomach hurts, his chest torments him, and his throat burns. He takes a few steps away from Osamu even if Osamu tries to get closer and his fingers get stuck in the snow because he can no longer stay standing.

Love is pushing, and pulling back. It’s struggling, not wanting to let go.

For some, it’s letting go.

For others, it’s to hold back and get better, to change.

For Suna, love is a bitter taste, hidden and expressed feelings, wanting to let go but also retain. Love is disgusting, stunning, deafening.

Love is...

A _flower_.

A beautiful pink flower with gleaming petals. An alluring demonstration of his loss of control in his hands, a delicate but deadly pink flower, with shimmering petals as clear as the tint of his lips from which it has just emerged. Four petals united is his ruin, his end. His collapse.

He exhales a breath of air and licks his lips.

He is still running out of air, perhaps he is dying, he doesn’t know.

And he doesn't think about the same thing either because his body reacts after getting away when Osamu approaches him.

"Stay away for me!" Suna yells at him and then leaves.

His hands protecting the flower. His emotions being a disaster.

Osamu stays behind and he moves forward, but he really doesn't.

**BARGAINING.**

Suna feels helpless, vulnerable.

He wonders what would have happened in case he had been more cautious.

If he had stayed more focused, or perhaps if he would have paid less attention. The way Osamu seeks to approach him, staying close or walking beside him, their shoulders brushing most of the time. He wonders if it's his fault for allowing Osamu to form physical contact between the two, forcing him to get used to his silent requests, his head on his shoulder, his hand on his thigh, his head on his lap, sleeping next to him when they make sleepovers and they look at each other because they have forced each other to become strong in order to hold each other’s eyes, not to fall apart when their gazes meet. He wonders if it’s his fault for not backing down, or if it is Osamu's fault for showing him that he is just as determined as his brother.

Perhaps they are both to blame.

Suna can't stop coughing and wants it to stop.

The flowers around him terrify him, sitting on the floor of his room, with flowers around him, his back against his bed, unable to stop coughing although he tries to hide the noise because it’s late and he doesn’t want to wake up his mother. It terrifies him. He is terrified. He wonders if he now understands the relationship between the petals and love. Love is suffocation, emotions that hang and don't let go, feelings that turn out to be too much to control. Love is out of control. It's crazy, and Suna feels that his situation is crazy. Maybe he is already crazy.

He wonders what would have happened if he had received that letter later.

He wonders if his mother is right, or if he should continue to hold his own opinion. Love is not something he wants, of that he is sure. It hurts, the new flower that his body produces. It hurts, he doesn’t want to see it, it's not a nice sight. He is creating a garden with his own emotions, of his own feelings. Suppressed, relieved, expressed. Too many. As soon as he feels like he can breathe, his lungs hurt again. He can’t sleep and the dark circles under his eyes continue to deepen. His hands have become accustomed to the softness of the petals, his eyes are not accustomed to the irony of seeing the ugliness of his emotions expressed in the form of beautiful pink flowers.

He is stubborn, he doesn’t know. Maybe he knows too much.

He hides his head between his chest and his legs because he is having trouble breathing and he wants to keep his head blank, he doesn't want to think, he wants to stop thinking, but Osamu telling him that he likes him is the only image that his mind provides him. He wonders what he has done to make Osamu like him, to think of him as more than just his best friend. He doesn’t understand the limits between a good, nice friendship and love. Being best friends is also love. But he refuses, and on the contrary, he coughs.

He raises his head when he hears that the door to his room is opened, and he continues to look at the floor, full of flowers when his mother takes his place next to him, leaving a cup near him.

"I was making tea for your throat."

Tea. Hot water with a taste of some fruit will not eliminate his bad luck.

He doesn’t even know if calling it bad luck makes sense.

He coughs because everything would be simpler if love were simpler, but simplicity is not what he sees when his palate is accompanied by a bitter taste, and something more, and finally he feels he wants to cry when again he finds a flower in his hands. Some areas of the petals being darker than the others because the flowers come from within him, and seeing them stained with blood shouldn’t surprise him, but his hands release the flower at the same time that his mother's hand finds his locks.

"Don't be afraid, it must be because you are forcing your throat." She says.

As if it was something normal, common, as if love didn't hurt.

He wonders if he's dying but doesn't really want to ask that question out loud. His thoughts haunt him and he just wants to get away. Love is extreme, it’s pain, it’s suffering, it’s feeling that he is out of air and not being able to do anything to repair the lack of air, the absence of being able to see beyond that moment. He is ruined, his body is ruined, his future is ruined. Again he begins to cough and wants it to stop. He wants to sleep but can’t sleep. It hurts, it hurts. And it _hurts_.

His mother leaves her hand on his back and Suna doesn’t know if he wants to cry.

He doesn’t know if crying will be the end of accepting his situation, if he has truly accepted it. Crying will only increase the difficulty of his breathing and his vision will be blurred. Perhaps he needs tears to run down his cheeks to finally understand that the flowers around him are as real as him emotions. But no. He doesn’t want to cry because he doesn’t find the motivation to cry, not when he believes that love is not necessary. For the first time he wonders if denying is as strong as accepting.

His throat stops burning for the first time all night and he takes the opportunity to allow his chest to rise and fall because something as basic and automatic as breathing has become painful. His mother caresses his cheek with her knuckles and then caresses his locks again.

"Can I ask you a question?" His mother says.

Suna wonders if his mother will ask him if something has happened so that the petals have turned into full flowers, and the same makes him remember Osamu, assuring him that he likes him, staring at him by enunciating those words incompatible with his sore throat, chest, head. Suna clears his throat and nods.

"If it bothers you so much, why don't you just take it off?"

His eyes fall on his mother, on his question.

He believes that love is grotesque, a weakness, but he has not sought to approach his doctor so that he can discuss the options that he has in front of him. From the first petal he has known, been aware, that an operation is enough for them to stop appearing, for the flowers around him to disappear as well as his sore throat, but not his chest pain, because to accept the operation would be to change that chest pain for another. It would be to remove from himself emotions that he doesn’t want but that also, as his mother has indirectly mentioned, he doesn’t dare to remove from himself. He doesn’t want to cut the roots and he knows it, he knows it and for the same reason he is angry with himself, disappointed. He seeks that pain, and he shouldn't. He shouldn’t have hesitated to tell his mother that he wanted an appointment with his doctor soon as he had seen the letter. But he didn’t. And now he has petals, sprouts, flowers.

Suna clears his throat but doesn't answer, and his mother seems satisfied with his absence of words. "Drink it when you can, you know I'll be awake if you need me." She says before leaving a kiss on his head to then get up and leave.

The cup next to him remains intact.

He knows that not answering is an answer in itself.

He knows it, he really knows it, and he's angry with himself.

Again he begins to cough, loudly. He is frustrated but doesn’t cry.

He wonders what would have happened if he hadn't fallen in love with Osamu Miya.

**DEPRESSION.**

Why?

Suna looks at the ceiling of his room and wonders why.

He often hears that the girls in his class or different classes talk about him as someone mysterious and attractive, like someone you want to be able to approach to probably decipher. Suna wonders what there is to decipher, why his personality can’t be what he shows and that's it. He doesn’t hide, he doesn’t pretend, and for the same reason he is who he is and how he is. He seeks to understand, read, sometimes manipulate. He doesn’t like fakeness because it’s easy for him to recognize it, and that’s it what has allowed him to decipher the true intentions behind Atsumu every time he smiles, as well as the thoughts that Osamu holds behind his neutral expression. They are honest in a different way, and now, looking at the ceiling of his room, with his throat itching, and some discarded flowers at the side of his bed, Suna wonders how honest he is being. With people, with himself.

Perhaps he has accepted his situation.

If he has missed classes and practices, it’s because he has partly accepted it.

He can no longer ignore the pain in his chest or the itching in his throat every time he tries to speak or just swallow. Something as simple as breathing has become the most forced task, and he feels weak. He doesn't like feeling weak, he hates feeling weak. Control no longer lies in his hands and his body doesn’t react as he likes, without listening to him, following its own methodologies. He knows that accepting is not the same as healing, since his cough at that moment assures him that accepting reality doesn’t imply agreeing with it. He understands, sees, tastes the flowers for himself, but he detests them, hates them, looks at them in frustration.

He is sick. He believes that his life is losing meaning and he no longer knows what to do.

He hears a noise at his door and lets out a sigh, air.

"Not now, mom."

"I'm not yer mom, moron."

Suna sits down in a second and feels the air being removed from his lungs.

Osamu opens the door of his room and the two look at each other. The last time Suna has told him to stay away from him, but of course, Osamu Miya, in all his glory, is in his room, at that moment approaching, doing the opposite of what was requested, what was exclaimed, after sitting next to him. Suna looks at him but Osamu's gray stops holding him to look behind him.

To look at the _flowers_.

Suna notices it, and despite him having been the one to exclaim him to stay away, he creates the physical contact between the two after taking his chin between his thumb and index finger gently, softly so that their eyes meet again. Osamu is not a fool, so he takes advantage of that gesture to take his wrist with his hand, not like the last time. But gently. Suna breathes deeply because he feels he can.

"Give me a name." Osamu asks.

Suna runs his gaze and Osamu pursues his lips.

Love is entertaining at times, some kind of show.

Sometimes public, sometimes in the form of a private function.

"Are you sure you don't like someone else?" Suna asks him.

Osamu releases him and Suna thinks he is relieved until Osamu rests the palm of his hand on his face to make him look at him just as he had just seconds ago.

"Who's in front of me now?"

"Me."

Suna runs his gaze again and his throat itches when Osamu stops keeping his hand on his cheek after understanding that gesture. Suna can’t deny it, he likes attention, being Atsumu's best friend has forced him to agree with attention, with the interest in him. But the difference is that Atsumu seeks attention, and he doesn’t, so he looks at Osamu when he continues to give it to him.

He wonders why. Why does he feel... _sad_.

Frustrated because emotions are not easy and misunderstood are, because a few words or the absence of them can imply different actions or end in the same consequences. Because love is not simple, or perhaps it’s so simple that it’s complicated. Suna wonders why he, why with so many people, Osamu chooses him.

"D’you trust me?" Osamu asks him.

He trusts him. He doesn’t trust himself. And Suna has always trusted himself.

Osamu Miya is breaking his shell. His heart.

Suna keeps looking at him instead of answering.

"Can ya give yer control to me for just one minute?"

It’s asking for too much, or perhaps it’s asking for little.

How much control is worth to Suna Rintarou?

How much does Suna Rintarou control?

Osamu opens the palm of his hand between them, leaving it for him.

Suna looks at it. Then looks at him.

To give up control is to trust, and to let himself fall.

It’s trusting, not blindly, because he is aware that he is giving up control.

Suna knows that if he hasn't left his hand on his yet, it's because he knows that neither he nor Osamu are stupid. If Suna trusts him and at that moment Osamu is in front of him, if flowers are those in abandoning his body, in making him suffer, in making his chest hurt, it’s because he knows that he trusts Osamu even if he doesn’t want to, or perhaps he does, because in different ways Osamu has proven that he can trust him, that he has earned his trust. Because he trusts Osamu to relinquish his control but not to lose it. His throat is not itchy and he can breathe when he moves his hand to rest it on his.

Osamu caresses his hand with his thumb and Suna swallows at the same time that Osamu gently pulls him to make him surround his neck with that arm, shortening the distance between them, and Suna inhales air not because he feels that he is running out of it, but because Osamu takes it off by being close to him, by making their faces stay together, by once again resting his hand on his cheek, and by leaving a kiss on it. Suna bites his lower lip as he believes that Osamu represents danger, either in the form of forgotten flowers or being next to him, again taking off the air after leaving another kiss closer to his mouth.

Suna is letting him. His throat is not itchy. No petal threatens to appear.

"Ya lied to me, Rin," Osamu whispers on his lips. "Ya never lie to me."

"You have one minute, Miya." Suna whispers.

"Don’t." Osamu kisses the corner of his mouth. "Call me." His lips brush his. "Miya." Osamu finally erases any trace of distance between them after joining his lips to his, and Suna finishes giving up control. He allows himself to lose in everything Osamu represents. Denied flowers, chaotic feelings, and pink trust. Perdition, lack of control.

The back of Suna's head touches his pillow at the same time that his other arm wraps around Osamu's neck because for sixty seconds he can afford it, it’s a permission he gives himself, because after all, what is love? Trust, giving, retracting, denying, accepting? Osamu's lips on his is the only thing he can think of. His throat doesn’t itch, his heart beats fast not because he is running out of air, but because Osamu is kissing him and he is letting him. Osamu's hands travel down to his neck and Suna wonders when he has let a single person make a mess of him.

He’s a disaster and Osamu knows it by stroking his neck with his thumbs, by staying close to him, by suffocating him with his lips on his, by taking away his control with a kiss that lasts too little for Suna's taste when his mouths stay part again, and Suna blames himself for thinking that way when his lips touch Osamu's lips. He clears his throat.

His throat itches.

Osamu looks at him and Suna looks at him.

"I will wait for ya Suna, I haven’t coughed a single petal so I will wait for ya."

And so, and suddenly, with words so strong, so determined, Osamu separates from him and leaves.

Suna sits up and brushes his lips with the tips of his fingers.

Osamu is not stupid.

Suna knows it.

His throat starting to itch is _his_ fault.

Suna knows it.

**TESTING.**

Suna keeps his knees close to his chest as well as his arms around them. Pink petals float on the water around him.

The plan had been three years.

Three years and come back to Tokyo, with nothing to fear, nothing to miss.

With no one to miss.

The EJP team is a team that he has always liked and followed throughout several years, so when a few weeks ago he received the letter from said team inviting him to a provisional training because his way of playing has attracted them and apparently they want him for their team, he was happy. After moving to Hyogo, he had understood that Inarizaki represented an advantage because Atsumu sets are a luxury that can be given, because the fact that Atsumu has an equally determined twin is another advantage, and because the black uniform that they still have another chance to wear, represents power, keep moving forward, and not looking back.

Or so Suna had thought so.

But when he had held the letter in his hands and instead of only one small smile, he had realized that his own plan had been ruined because he couldn’t take the past three years as mere training and tournament afternoons, and nothing more. Atsumu had become his best friend, and Osamu, someone more than his best friend.

Osamu Miya had appeared to collapse and break his plan.

To break him.

Suna feels his throat itch, and stops hugging his knees to submerge himself under the water he has let run until the bathtub is one millimeter away from flooding. He closes his eyes and holds his breath, wanting to forget everything but not being able to because he is no longer sure he can. EJP loves him and he loves Osamu.

He opens his eyes and emerges to breathe out.

He pulls his hair back and looks around him.

Osamu has assured him that he will wait for him, but his own body won’t.

He wonders if he wants to scream or keep asking silent questions, maybe both. He can still remember Osamu's lips on his, the closeness of Osamu and the way in which he has voluntarily yielded to him, the chance to get everything out of control, to get him out of control, to take away his balance because he has allowed him. Osamu is called the calmer twin, while in reality, Osamu shakes his world. He wonders if he is fighting with himself, since his past self would have never accepted a person to appear as an obstacle to the plans he has been thinking about even before moving.

He coughs because he believes that love is unfair.

He knows that love is taking risks, and that Osamu is asking him to do it. He hasn’t refused to do it from the beginning, and he wants to know why, if Osamu likes him and cares about him as he has assured him, then petals continue to emerge in his lungs and then leave his body. His love is reciprocat—

Suna breathes out and hugs his knees to leave his chin on them. If he has been about to think that his love is reciprocated, then it means that Osamu's is too. Perhaps it was the kiss finally shared, or the fact that Osamu had decided to appear at his house anyway, even if he had exclaimed that he should stay away from him. Osamu keeps looking for him, and Suna wonders if he is selfish. But Osamu is not the one who spits _petals, sprouts, and flowers_ , but he. If pink has become the color of his nightmares, it’s because his present self no longer agrees with his past and future self, and there is a choice for him to make.

Love is accepting, love is denying.

He likes Osamu.

And if flowers leave his mouth, it’s because he doesn’t want to accept it.

By trying to deny his feelings for Osamu, he prevents the love between them from being completely and totally reciprocated, because he avoids thinking about Osamu, about him and the way in which the two are always together, be it talking, using their phones, or simply being present next to each other. In the way in which they are actually aware that Osamu is more stupid than Atsumu because his face remains serious but his emotions are sometimes as false as they are honest. The twins must be the same in order to understand each other, and if Suna now has a place between them, being able to read them, it’s because somehow he is just as rude, stupid, and sometimes an asshole.

He avoids thinking about the way in which he feels satisfied when Osamu seeks his physical contact, only his and no one else, because when others approach him, it bothers him, but Osamu seeks on his own to approach him. Osamu sees in him the same conformity and tranquility that he sees in Osamu.

His throat doesn't itch, his chest still hurts.

Love hurts, but denying it even more, and repressing it, gives him pink flowers.

Trying to keep his emotions under control hurts, and trying to manipulate them burns.

Osamu has managed to tug on him to get him out of his compliance bubble.

Osamu challenges him and he agrees to stand up to face him, sometimes to face good consequences, sometimes to deal with bad consequences.

Suna dips his index finger into the water to make the petals move.

Osamu likes him and he is the one who must decide what to do with that information.

The first option involves denial, pain, flowers. It involves continuing as he is, denying his feelings, the emotions that Osamu provokes him because if he didn’t like Osamu his life would be easier, it wouldn’t be difficult to think of Tokyo, and to leave Hyogo behind without worrying, without remembering, without missing. It means continuing to repress and create secrets.

The second option is just as difficult because it involves accepting that he likes Osamu. That his three-year plan of nothing more than volleyball has been thrown away because Osamu has approached him through volleyball, quickly adding time off the court to create moments together with him. It involves accepting that love is as ugly as it‘s nice, as intriguing as it is shocking.

He thinks of people whose feelings are unrequited.

They would probably hate him.

But mutual emotions are not always the solution to all problems.

Love can also bring fights, arguments, misunderstandings.

To love, you have to be brave, and to be brave, you have to love.

Suna rests one of his cheeks on his knees.

He wonders if love is complicated or if he is complicated.

Maybe both.

Perhaps love doesn’t want him because he is complicated.

He believes that love sucks.

His throat itches.

**ACCEPTANCE.**

Suna's head hurts. He also hugs himself because he is cold, and wonders how powerful love is for people to do crazy things in the name of it. For him, it means being at the door of Osamu's house, his lips shivering and probably purple, because he never wears the right clothes, much less when he leaves his house being desperate, determined to define for himself what love represents. Lately he's been using his bead as his place, staring at the ceiling without moving, so walking and being cold doesn't help him. He is weakened, and he no longer knows if he coughs because he is eternally cursed or because although he likes winter weather, winter weather doesn’t like him.

Osamu opens the door and glances at him, frowning.

Suna swallows, and smoke leaves his lips instead of petals when he lets out a breath. "Hi."

"Are ya damn crazy, Suna?"

Osamu takes his arm to make him enter his house and then close the door, extending the sleeves of his hoodie to caress his arms since it’s evident that Suna is cold. Suna feels better as soon as he is at home and when Osamu caresses his arms with his hands. "Yes." He replies even if he knows it was a theoretical question, and for the same reason he frowns when Osamu gives him a serious look.

He's crazy because he's there. Because love is being crazy. To be in love is to be crazy.

Osamu again takes him by the arm and drags him with him to the living room’s couch to then make him sit down and rest the blanket that was there on his shoulders to then sit in front of him. Suna wants to ask where Atsumu is but the truth is that he has always been a little more interested in the twin in front of him.

He opens his mouth but the words don't come out, and neither do the petals.

During the last weeks he has felt lost, confused, as if he had somehow been going through the different stages of a duel because seeing the first petals has made him think that love can ruin as well as save, because emotions are already overwhelming. Sometimes he just wants to get away from them even if they belong to him, even if he is the owner but anyway sometimes he is not able to control them, to keep them under his control. He has felt sad, angry, confused, disoriented, he still is.

"You told me you need a name." He finally says.

Osamu looks at him and licks his lips, and nods.

Suna's heart beats heavily but he still decides to speak a second time, since he has not only accepted that Osamu likes him, but that he likes Osamu, "Suna Rintarou."

He himself has developed _his own flowers_ , he himself has created _his own hanahaki._

Not because he doesn’t love himself, since from the beginning he has agreed with flowers due to the fact that they represent vanity and narcissism, but because accepting that he loves someone is also a weakness as a strength. It’s accepting that he is willing to give his heart to someone, for them (for Osamu) to take care of it and protect it, so that they (Osamu) won’t play with it, so that it continues to beat, sometimes it will be of happiness, other times it will out of anger, and other times it will be because sadness exists. Sometimes many emotions intermingled because love is confusing.

Accepting that he loves Osamu hurts as much as denying that he loves him.

But the first option eliminates the pain in his throat, stomach, chest, all over his body, while the second option gives him the same.

Osamu looks at him, not seeming to be surprised with his confession.

Suna finally understands that he feels that he has been going through the different stages of a grief not because he is still confused, but because he has decided to break with his past self, the one who thinks that love is a waste of time, the one who is sure that love is only an obstacle.

"You are everything I want and everything I fear." Suna says.

Osamu represents his greatest fear because he loves him.

"Love is fear, it’s being afraid." Osamu agrees.

"I know."

Love is beautiful, magical. It brings hope and joy, it beautifies the days and lights up the nights. It allows the heart to beat with anticipation, and proves that tears sliding down your cheeks don’t always imply bad words or actions behind them. Love is unique, it means not giving up. It’s amazing, exciting, and doesn’t discriminate. It represents caresses in the least expected moments, unrepeatable situations turned into good memories, gestures so simple yet so eccentric, and sometimes objects that are impossible to discard because good intentions are the base of its existence.

Suna blinks.

**Bullshit.**

He believes that love is completely real.

And stupid.

Love is real and stupid because he is real and stupid. Love makes him real and stupid, and he makes love real and stupid.

"You scare me because in different ways you have made me see you differently, that I want to see you differently." Suna begins to tell him, explaining to him, and likewise, the reason for the existence of his flowers. "You force me to see you differently, to like you differently. And I like you because you dare me to do it, because you demand me you do it, but I also do it because I want to."

Osamu is his classmate, teammate, his best friend.

"I like ya, Suna." Osamu repeats.

Osamu is an asshole, and for the same reason he is afraid of him and loves him.

Suna allows a smile to appear on his face.

"I like you, Osamu." Suna breathes.

His chest hurts not because he can't breathe, but because he feels relieved. His throat doesn't itch or feels like he needs to clear it, his head doesn't hurt anymore, and he’s sure he’ll never see any more flowers around him, at least not pink petals and sprouts.

Osamu leaves his hand between the two, and Suna takes it, without hesitation.

Suna believes that love is a weakness that strengthens you and a strength that weakens you.

"Tsumu did tell me he saw ya," Osamu tells him, and Suna isn't really surprised. "I confessed to ya how I feel ‘cuz I didn't want ya to think I don't like ya."

"Thank you."

Perhaps he’s not only complicated because he didn’t want want his three-year plan to be spoiled, but because in reality loving is always giving yourself up without knowing the consequences, and just as it’s liberating, it’s also scary.

"And now, what do you wanna do?"

"I'll play for EJP." Suna assures him, and Osamu smiles. "And I will love you."

Osamu smiles even more, and Suna smiles because he thinks he is right in thinking that the smiling gesture is worth all the flowers that he had previously let out of his body.

"And I will love ya." Osamu repeats.

Suna allows the warmth of the blanket to stop hugging his shoulders after that slides down his back because he prefers to allow Osamu's warmth to be the one to hug him when he moves to cut the distance between the two and hug him, wrapping his arms around his neck while Osamu surrounds his waist with his own. Suna believes that it’s not so bad to think that love is a weakness if Osamu will be for him, to take care of him, to protect him. He's scared, but who isn't?

A few millimeters are between them when they break apart to look at each other.

Suna smiles and Osamu smiles.

And they kiss.

For the second time, again.

Love is explosive.

Love is brutally beautiful, and beautifully brutal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
